Letting go is hard, but it’s an essential part of life. And unless you learn how to let go – whether it’s your toy when you’re a child and need to give it away because you’re too old for it, or your first love who for some reason, could never be yours, or an old grouse against your mother-in-law, you will never grow. You will have feelings of hurt, remorse, guilt and self-pity, but once you acknowledge those feelings, and understand why letting go will in turn, later benefit you and those around you, the process will become easy to tackle.

Why?

We’re all wired differently. So, quite naturally, when what you think or expect will happen does not happen, it leaves you angry, upset and hurt. However, when you cool down and look back to see what you learnt from the experience, you will begin to understand a couple of things. Either it was never meant to be because your personalities were mismatched (in case of your lost love). Or that the other person you expected to behave in a certain way will never change; she’s lived all her life that way, and you can never force change in anybody, you can try to change yourself though (letting go of that old grouse). And, once you let go, you also realise there is a world outside the one you were clinging on to.

Is it any good to let go?

Countless studies have been done on how bottling up or suppressing feelings of discontent, old grouses and hatreds could in turn, have psychosomatic effects on our body and mind, often resulting in even serious illnesses like cancers.

The book ‘You Can Heal Yourself’ by Louise L Hay, is a good example of this. Just imagine a visual moment of setting everything in yourself free, your cells inside the body to roam freely, swinging your arms and legs freely, and savouringthat moment. Letting go does just that – revitalises your body and mind like nothing else can.

Spiritual gurus would also add that you must love yourself, and not waste time hating others, because that only causes you heartache and anguish, which if harboured long enough, could fester into a tumour, while the other person is quite oblivious to your reactions. But once you learn to love yourself, you will find ways to let go.

Is it easy to let go?

Yes. There are ways to do it. Acknowledge the hurt and pain in the first place. Life is unfair. Accept that. Nobody gets dealt the same set of cards. There is happiness and sorrow in different parts of everyone’s lives, only we don’t know when they’re going through their share of each! Pain can come to anyone – even those who seem to have everything – money, fame, success! Pain can come from feelings of being lonely, unloved, two-timed, short-changed, over-looked or even from gaining an extra pound!

Next, identify the reasons. Once you become aware of why you’re harbouring negative feelings towards somebody or some situation, consciously decide that life is too short to hold on to any of them. This is the time to let go. Do it mentally, first. And, if you can verbaLly tell the person, face to face, that you have forgiven all that happened in the past, better still. Now move on. The future is what you make of it. Don’t let it stagnate to a pool of regrets, hatred and old grouses. Grow up. Choose to be healthy and joyous.

Take a tip from Nature

Think about this. Time only moves forward. It leaves the past behind. Yet we forget to move forward, out of the past. Disappointments and old sorrows stack up in our consciousness. We store files of old memories, returning sometimes to open them. To be liberated is to switch our minds off and erase the old files. We can take a tip from time – leave the past where it belongs … in the past.